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The brayherd, fresh from raiding, were animated, full of an otherworldly energy from their victorious Slaughter of the human and aelef inhabitants of the village. Suddenly, the air around them grew crisp, and the Bray shaman’s nostrils flared, “The lightning men!” shouted the beast, roaring commands to prepare his followers for what would in moments be an onslaught. The Children of the Forest were often able to raid free of harassment, but the watchful eye of sigmar fell upon them this day, and a host of metal clad warriors would in moments descend on lightning bolts to bring justice to those intuders in the lands of sigmar.

The Shaman shouted “The stones, the village’s shards, find them quickly and bring them to me before they discover our intentions.”

The mission was Total Conquest, 2,000 points. My list was simple enough:

2 bray shamans, 1 was general with scion of the dark gods

2 beastlords, one with great weapon and one with 2 axes and the herdstone axe artifact

2 units of 30 gors

A unit of 30 ungors

A unit of 20 ungor raiders

A unit of 20 bestigors

A Doombull and 3 Bullgors

5 centigors

A ghorgon for summoning

My opponent’s list was roughly:

A stardrake

A lord on dracoth

The stormcast totem guy

The flying character with the bird

A stormcast priest of some kind

10 of the liberators

2 units of 5 of the basic archer stormcast

5 retributors

3 of the flying guys from the starter set

Deployment: this mission used an unusual deployment map, actually kind of similar to vanguard in 7th ed 40k. We took turns placing units and my opponent decided to take first turn.

Turn one:

Stormcast: Joe popped the Dracoth rider’s fearless bubble and set to shooting at me, luckily failing to wound with a star fated arrow shot at my general, and wearing the centigors down to nothing before finishing up his turn

Brayherd: First, I successfully summoned a ghorgon, as well as made my bestigors fearless with inspiring presence. My other Shaman whiffed casting mystic shield. Some lucky run rolls brought my beasts up fast, the ungors hung back at a home objective, keeping it for the entire game. I ambushed my 20 ungor raiders right behind enemy lines, but their shooting accomplished little. My bestigors managed to make combat and got stuck in for what would be 4 turns of grinding combat.

Screaming across the field, a host of nearly armorless bestigors charged headlong into combat. The liberators said prayers to sigmar as the enemy reached their lines, and struck hard with their hammers. Despite the beasts’ unarmored appearance, they were nearly unphasdd by the impacts, given an unnatural resilience the warriors recognized as the blessing of the plague god. Each man that fell in this battle was likely to die, they knew, for the blades of the pestigor harbor certain doom.

Turn 2:

Stormcast: the sigmarites struck back, shooting up my ghorgon and seriously depleting his wounds. The dragon rider landed on joe’s right flank, ensuring he kept his distance from the herdstone axe. The knight venator sniped out my herdstone axe Beastlord later that turn anyhow. The winged stormcast guys threw hammers at my ungors and charged, the dracoth rider charged my ghorgon, and the retributors charged my bestigors who were already engaged with the liberators. My ghorgon perished, but bizarrely the ungors and stormcast both failed to a single wound to each other. As noted above, the bestigor combat ground on for most of the game. The Drake charged my left flank gors and proceeded to delete the entire unit, a brutal combat that really left me in awe of its damage output (it also rains hell fire on you, and holy fuck did that do a LOT of mortal wounds across my army)

“THE SKULL, BRING ME THE BEAST’S SKULL” shouted the herd’s shaman

Brayherd: After the loss of my gors to the star drake, I tried to get my warherd into combat with him, but couldn’t make my rolls. My Beastlord with great weapon charged the dracoth rider, they would fight for a few rounds before the dracoth rider finished him off. My right gor blob multicharged the retributors and the knight venator

Turn 3:

Brayherd: I rolled first turn this round, allowing my warherd to charge the star drake. Sadly, he ate 2 Bullgors and quickly killed the other, and saved all the damage done by the Doombull. The bestigors began to fall, and my gor herd slowly thinned out as well. Behind enemy lines my ungors took casualties but stayed stuck in with the flying dudes, reducing their unit to 1 model.

Smelling the fresh blood from the small wounds inflicted by the gors, the Doombull licked his pustulent lips and snorted excitedly. “You die!” He shouted in the common tongue as he swung his axe with a relentless fury. Though he did manage to plant the blade firmly into the beast’s shoulder, the rider unleashed a fury of hammer blows, leaving the creature’s skull a messy and unrecognizable pulp.

Stormcast: this is the turn the tide really changed. Joe used a stormcast power to move his venator to contest an objective, my Doombull died, my gors were heavily reduced. My last Beastlord and a bray Shaman die against his dracoth.

Turn 4:

Stormcast: joe mopped up here, killing my general with stardrake rain and killing my 2nd for blob to a man. I still held the back objective with 30 ungors, but nothing in joe’s army had the speed to reach them t5, so we just tallied out VPs for the rest of the remaining turns, and despite taking an early lead on VP’s, the stormcast held out on the end, winning 11-10!

The bray Shaman fled with great haste, leaving a trail of blood and pus behind his putrescent form. His best warriors were cut down like wheat by the blessed sigmarite weapons, and the drake had made short work of an entire flank. The Children of the Forest would need to be swift in their retreat as they needed serious reinforcements if they were to face the might of the stormcast again. Chuckling through the pain of his wounds, he said to the nearest pestigor “We’ll show them the transformative power of the lord of despair.”

He glanced back at the stormcast wounded his men had picked off and were now dragging into the lush undergrowth of the forest.